Departure Adventures

Before even leaving the Melbourne Airport, we had a few adventures.

After a wonderfull farewell dinner with family followed by a couple of hours sleep, Dad & Cheryl woke us up at 2:30am to take us to the airport.

We had a few things to claim back via the Tourist Return Scheme (getting the GTS back on recent equipment purchases) so we arrived at the airport at 4:00am for a 7:45am flight. We had no idea whether claiming these items would take 5mins or 90mins, so we figured the earlier we got there, the better.

Claiming the tax back took about 5 minutes, so we figures we'd have a couple of hours to kill before heading off. That was... until we hit the check-in counter and discovered it was going to cost thousands of dollars to take the luggage we'd packed!!

It turns out that the travel agent had massively underquoted the excess luggage cost; and we'd packed our luggage a lot more efficiently than we expected. So, if anyone is going from Melbourne to London, the going rate is $75 per kilo. Yikes.

Anyway, the end result was that, standing right near the check-in counter, Hannah & I had to dump half our luggage there and then. Losing the Camino hiking gear wasn't an option: we'd spent months researching and weighing every single item in the backpacks and had whittled it down to bare essentials. Losing the camera gear and laptops wasn't an option: they're as essential as oxygen. So it was most of our normal everyday clothes and toiletries that we dumped. We hit London with enough everyday clothes to last a couple of days... if we re-wore things on some of those days.

I don't know what we would have done if Dad & Cheryl weren't there to see us off... and take things back home. A huuuuuuge thank you to you both!!

I was definitely in need of a wardrobe renovation anyway, so it's a good excuse to go SHOPPING!!

(The piccy is us with the excess luggage we had to leave behind. Oops.)

When it rains...

...it pours.

Ohmygod. What a week.

As a bullet point summary, this weekend we:

• Moved house. Twice. Involving more flights of stairs than is sensible. In the rain.
• Quit our jobs.
• Shaved my head.
• Had my nephew & my birthday.

After we knocked off the first two items on that list, I participated in the World's Greatest Shave on the weekend. I'd promised that if we raised $400, I'd shave my head. We easily reached that amount (it's a little over $700 now), so at a combined birthday BBQ for my nephew & I, everyone took turns at cutting my hair.

I discovered two things during the process:

• my neice Daisy already has the skills to become a world class hairdresser. She was able to use the world's bluntest clippers without dragging too much hair from the roots.
• my neice Chloe already has the skills to become a world class movie director. The entire process was performed under her expert guidance.

As a bonus, I no longer need to carry as much shampoo on the Camino. ;-)

Don't come a-knocking...

...when this building's rocking.

Hannah & I, along with half of Melbourne, just felt an earthquake hit Melbourne. It only lasted 5~10 seconds and was enough to rock the entire building (and we're on the 2nd floor), but nowhere near enough to knock anything over.

Initial estimates put it at about a magnitude 4.7, originating 90kms south east of Melbourne.

It's no big deal. I suppose after a few weeks of the packing boxes ready to head away, we get a little excited about these things. 8-D

As a quick update:

• We're both resigning next Friday, as soon as our pay hits our bank accounts. I've been there for 11.5 years so it's A Big Move, but I'm really looking forwards to moving on to some new adventures, whatever they may be.
• We're moving house next Friday. Yep, the same day that we're resigning. It wasn't planned that way -- it's just coincidental that's when the lease expires.
• I'm planning on shaving my head next Friday/Saturday for the World's Greatest Shave (fundraising for the Leukaemia Foundation). We'll be moving house when the official public head shavings occur, so we'll have our own private shaving and upload the video to YouTube. :-)
• Next Friday is my nephew's birthday.
• Why the hell do all these things need to happen on the same day? And why does that day need to be Friday the 13th? ZOMFG! SRSLY!

We've stopped walking as much. We're still walking 5kms around Albert Park Lake most nights, but we're not doing the 15km hikes with backpacks in state parks anymore. It's partly because we need to focus on putting everything into storage for a year or two (we can only take what we can fit in a suitcase!) and finalising paperwork; and partly because bushfires have limited the places we can hike with the backpacks. We've clocked up over 650kms of walking in the last few months, so I think we're in a good position to relax a little while we concentrate on getting the last cores done before we go.

OK. Sleep time now. BAI!

Clothes Labelling

Much to Hannah's amusement/bafflement, I decided to label my clothes before we head off. My reasoning is that given we'll be washing & drying them along with a dozen other people with similar hiking clothes, it'll probably help avoid someone accidentally grabbing some of mine.

I've learned a good lesson in the process:

Never label your clothes at night while watching a movie after a glass or two of wine.

It leads to labelling your name on the outside of some of your clothes.

And where are you from?

I bought us some passport holders that could be described as kitsch Australiana, but not quite Ken Done. They were $18 each from a shop in Port Melbourne and they made me smile. My eyes went glazy upon sight of them, as I floated off into an imagined future where I was a ghostly form passing through international airports, clutching my red kangaroo.

P.S. Please don't use my passport details for evil.

Bushfire Season (cont)

I don't think there's anyone in Australia that doesn't know what's happened over the last few days. But for the non-Aussies, we've just had the worst bushfires in Australian history. There's no need for me to describe it any further: Google has thousands of articles here, here's the Wikipedia page, and here's a collection of photos.

We're not directly affected by the bushfires, but here's a few ways that make me realise that it's a small world:

• Two weekends ago we were hiking in Bunyip State Park (see here). In the next weekend or two we were planning on hiking around Marysville. Obviously we won't be heading out that way again anytime soon.
• My sister's fiancee is working with emergency services out there, and he said the media are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. The reality in these towns is horrific.
• We live 300 meters from the Alfred Hospital where they're bringing most of the burns patients, and we've heard a few of the helicopters bringing new patients in over the last few days.
• My Dad and his mates often ride their motorbikes through some of the areas that have now been burnt out.

In terms of how people can help, here's a few possible ways:

• Red Cross's Victorian Bushfire Appeal 2009
• Red Cross Blood Donation
• The Salvation Army’s Victorian Bushfire Appeal
  
• Wildlife Victoria Bushfire Appeal
• RSPCA Victoria Bushfire Appeal
• Coles to donate Friday 13th Feb's profits to Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund

Bushfire season

It's bushfire season in Victoria. A week or two back the forecast was for the hottest week in 100 years, and we've just had our second driest January on record.

It was only a fortnight ago that we went hiking in Bunyip State Park, and this park is currently on fire. Articles here and here. It's a beautiful part of the world, so I hope it recovers quickly.

Park rangers are recommending that people stay out of the state/national parks at the moment, so we'll switch to doing our longer walks around local parks & rivers in the 'burbs.

Offtopic: I always imagine park rangers as looking like Aragorn, carrying a sword, wearing a hooded cloak and having a fashionable amount of stubble, but I've always been proven wrong when I see them.